Most Coveted Architectural Book - The Future of the Skyscraper

Most Coveted Architectural Book – The Future of the Skyscraper

September 1, 2015

Tall, elegant, strong, something that you simply can’t ignore, present in all the greatest cities of the world, a skyscraper isn’t just a big building. It defies the sky and makes us feel small compared with their grandiosity, but at the same time makes us think: we‘re capable of built something so extraordinary that touches the sky!

A skyscraper can have several levels of comprehension in a society, the architecture can be the start, but while reading this book we are invited to think about all the other social dimensions that can be related with a skyscraper.

Engineering evolution or just an expression of the human ego, the sky is the limit for assumptions that involve these guardians of the public spaces. The skyscrapers change everything that surrounds them, even the look of the citizens that have to learn how to live with these buildings that are more and more expressions of power, or could it be just expressions of art and architecture? Maybe it’s just another attempt of the humans to touch the divine.

The Future of the Skyscraper was written by a group of talented professionals that work in different areas. Their visions are a great differential in a book that makes us rethink everything we thought we know about the skyscrapers of the future. The book belongs to SOM Thinkers Series and is published by Metropolis Books.

In The Future of the Skyscraper Bruce Sterling describes four future scenarios that might shape future towers architecture, some of them aren’t pleasant and can be considered even horrifying. Tom Vanderbild, while visiting the highest floors, gives us a psychological point of view of what happens in these buildings and Emily Badger makes us think about the physiology of who lives and works on skycrapers. Matthew Yglesias shares political analyses, thinking in the example of Washington DC. Diana Lind tests the idea that these giants will have a major impact in future economy industries. A review in literature, film and recent urban history is made by Will Self in order to understand the tower in the popular imagination and Dickson Despommier adds an ecological vision of the future about the role of these towers.

Authors:

Philip Nobel edited the book, he is a New York–based architecture critic who writes for Metropolis, Artforum, The New York Times and Architectural Digest, and is the author of Sixteen Acres: Architecture and the Outrageous Struggle for the Future of Ground Zero. The book has also several contributors: Bruce Sterling is an American science fiction author, specially known for his work on the cyberpunk short story collection Mirrorshades; Tom Vanderbilt is an American journalist that works for publications like inWired or The New York Times Magazine; Matthew Yglesias is the Executive Editor of Vox; Diana Lind is the Executive Director and Editor-in-Chief of Next City, a non-profit magazine with social, economic and environmental mission; Will Self is the author of the novel Umbrella that was a finalist for 2015 Man Booker Prize; Emily Badger is a reporter for the Washington Post; and Dickson Despommier, who is an emeritus Professor of Microbiology and Public Health at Columbia University and the author of The Vertical Farm. Michael Govan is the director of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the responsible for the selection of the illustrations featured in the book.